Federal Reserve

Helicopter Ben Bernanke Says Everything Is Going To Be Okay

Don’t worry everybody. Federal Reserve Chairman “Helicopter Ben” Bernanke says that the U.S. economy is going to be just fine, and that if it does slip up somehow the Federal Reserve is ready to rush in to the rescue. That was essentially Bernanke’s message to an annual gathering of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Friday. Bernanke insisted that even though the Federal Reserve has already cut interest rates to historic lows it still has plenty of tools that could be used to stimulate the U.S. economy if necessary. Well, considering Bernanke’s track record, the “don’t worry, be happy” mantra is just not going to cut it this time. After all, if Bernanke and his team were such intellectual powerhouses the “surprise” financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 would not have caught them with their pants down. The truth is that just before the “greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression” Bernanke was telling everyone that the economy was just fine. So are we going to let him fool us again?

But Bernanke insists that this time is different.  This time the Federal Reserve really has got a handle on things.  During his remarks at Jackson Hole, Bernanke said that the Fed will adopt “unconventional measures if it proves necessary, especially if the outlook were to deteriorate significantly.”

Unconventional measures?

Could that be a thinly veiled way of saying that Helicopter Ben and his pals will do as much “quantitative easing” as they feel is necessary to keep the economy moving forward?

Unfortunately, most Americans have absolutely no idea what quantitative easing is.

Basically, when quantitative easing takes place the Federal Reserve creates money “ex nihilo” (out of thin air) and uses that money to buy stuff like U.S. government bonds and mortgage-backed securities.  By pumping money into the economy like this, the hope is that banks will start lending more and people and businesses will have more money to spend. 

As far back as 2002, Bernanke has been openly advocating “easy money” policies as a way to stimulate the U.S. economy out of troubled times….

“The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at no cost.”

Now, before we go on and discuss some of the problems with quantitative easing, it must be noted that the statement by Bernanke above is absolutely rife with errors. 

It is absolutely frightening that someone like Bernanke has more power over the U.S. economy than any member of Congress or even the president of the United States.

First of all, the U.S. government does not issue our dollars.  They are issued by the Federal Reserve.

Just pull out a dollar bill right now.  It says “Federal Reserve Note” on it right at the top.

Secondly, the U.S. government cannot produce as many dollars as it wants.  Whenever it wants more U.S. dollars it has to give U.S. Treasuries to the Federal Reserve in exchange.

If the U.S. government could produce as many dollars as it wants, it could just print up $13 trillion and pay off the national debt tomorrow. 

But under the current system, it cannot do that.  The Federal Reserve controls the currency, and the truth is that the Federal Reserve is a private central bank that is about as “federal” as Federal Express is.

Thirdly, there is always a cost for producing more dollars.  We’ll talk about inflation in a moment, but first it must be noted that any time “the printing presses are fired up” the U.S. government goes into more debt, and every time the U.S. government goes into more debt, more interest must be paid on that new debt.

So there is a very high cost involved in the creation of more dollars.

In addition, every time a new U.S. dollar is created, every other U.S. dollar becomes a little bit less valuable.  Essentially, the more dollars there are in existence, the less purchasing power each dollar is going to have.  This phenomenon can be masked or delayed for a while, but inflation will always triumph in the end when the money supply is constantly expanded.

The U.S. dollar has lost over 95 percent of its value since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913.  This has not been a mistake.  The Federal Reserve system is designed to slowly but surely inflate the U.S. dollar.  What they do want to avoid, however, is doing it too quickly.

And this is exactly what is in danger of happening in the years ahead.  As the U.S. money supply dramatically expands in response to the exploding U.S. national debt we are eventually going to be dealing with some very, very serious inflation.

Right now, the Bush and Obama administrations have been getting the United States into so much debt that there aren’t enough buyers in the world to absorb it all (at least at the current super low interest rates on U.S. government debt).  So, instead of raising interest rates to a point where U.S. debt would be suitably attractive to investors, the Federal Reserve is stepping in and is “buying” (once again with money created out of thin air) all the excess U.S. Treasuries that don’t sell.  This is essentially a Ponzi scheme and it keeps interest rates on U.S. Treasuries artificially low.

In addition, the Federal Reserve has been handing gigantic sacks of cash to very large banks and financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup at almost zero percent interest and those big banks and financial institutions have been turning around and investing a large percentage of that cash in U.S. Treasuries.  This has created a gigantic U.S. Treasury carry trade bubble, and it has enabled many of these giant financial monsters to make massive piles of essentially risk-free cash.  This is another Ponzi scheme.

But these Ponzi schemes are not sustainable and they cannot last forever.  Right now Bernanke and his cohorts have been able to finance trillions in U.S. government debt and still keep interest rates on U.S. Treasuries and inflation very, very low.  At some point, their juggling act will come to an end and we will have a gigantic mess on our hands.

But for right now, Bernanke seems quite please with himself.  The following is how Bernanke concluded his speech at Jackson Hole….

As I said at the beginning, we have come a long way, but there is still some way to travel. Together with other economic policymakers and the private sector, the Federal Reserve remains committed to playing its part to help the U.S. economy return to sustained, noninflationary growth.

In Bernanke’s fantasy world, the U.S. economy is going to roar back to life and will soon be stronger than it ever has been.

But don’t you believe him.

The truth is that every single month the U.S. economy is seeing large numbers of jobs leave the country.

The truth is that thanks to our exploding trade deficit, the U.S. economy is poorer at the end of every single month than it was at the beginning.

The truth is that every single month the U.S. government (along with the vast majority of state and local governments) gets even deeper into debt.

The United States economy is not on the road to prosperity.

The United States economy gets poorer and deeper in debt every single month and is slowing bleeding to death.

Ben Bernanke can run around all he wants and try to convince us that “the sky isn’t falling”, but at some point the American people are going to wake up and simply not believe him anymore.

Will Quantitative Easing By The Federal Reserve Unleash Economic Hell?

Prior to the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, the Federal Reserve could always count on being able to stimulate the U.S. economy with a quick cut to interest rates.  But now with interest rates just barely above zero, the Federal Reserve is searching for other ways to pump life into a U.S. economy that is staggering about like a drunken college student.  One of the ways that the Federal Reserve can do this is through something called “quantitative easing”.  In essence, what happens is that the Federal Reserve creates money out of thin air and starts buying things like U.S. Treasuries, mortgage-backed securities and corporate debt.  But many economic analysts are now warning that further rounds of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve could end up setting off a series of events that could ultimately unleash economic hell.  In fact, there are quite a few high profile commentators who now believe that hyperinflation in the United States is absolutely inevitable.

For those not familiar with quantitative easing, Wikipedia has a pretty good definition….

The term quantitative easing (QE) describes a form of monetary policy used by central banks to increase the supply of money in an economy when the bank interest rate, discount rate and/or interbank interest rate are either at, or close to, zero.[citation needed] A central bank does this by first crediting its own account with money it has created ex nihilo (“out of nothing”).[1] It then purchases financial assets, including government bonds, mortgage-backed securities and corporate bonds, from banks and other financial institutions in a process referred to as open market operations.

But is it really a good idea for a privately-owned central bank to have the power to create money out of nothing and to do whatever it wants with it outside of U.S. government control?

Of course not, but we dealt with those issues in another article.

What we will concern ourselves with in this article are the negative effects that could be unleashed as the Federal Reserve further abuses this power.

Now keep in mind that disasters don’t usually happen overnight.  They usually build over time.  When the Federal Reserve begins new rounds of quantitative easing, it will take time for the effects to be felt.

And so far, the new quantitative easing measures that the Federal Reserve has implemented have been relatively mild….

*The Federal Reserve has announced that it will “continue to roll over the Federal Reserve’s holdings of Treasury securities as they mature”.

*The Federal Reserve has also announced that it has decided to reinvest principal payments on mortgage holdings into U.S. Treasury securities.

*The Federal Reserve Bank of New York announced on Wednesday that it will purchase $18 billion in U.S. Treasury securities between now and mid-September.

But most analysts are expecting quantitative easing by the Fed to accelerate – especially if the U.S. economy continues to flounder.

So is there a reason we should be concerned about all of this?

Well, yes there is.

Marc Faber, the author of “The Gloom, Boom and Doom Report”, recently warned CNBC that all of this intervention by the Federal Reserve is going to create a “final crisis” that will destroy the U.S. financial system….

“Investors should have listened to me already six months ago when I wrote that the Fed will continue to monetize … they will print and print and print until the final crisis wipes out the whole system.”

In a recent article, Bob Chapman of the International Forecaster described some of the financial gymnastics that our “financial authorities” go through just to keep the current shell game going….

But first, we ignore things like monthly hundred billion plus mathematical discrepancies between the amount of the government’s deficits and the amount of treasury bonds being sold.  Then we give the proceeds from the bogus excess treasury sales to foreign countries, foreign central banks and sovereign wealth funds as well as Cayman Island hedge funds so they can do what with it?  Why, so they can buy US treasury paper and agency paper, among other things.  Yep, we set up the straw men, fund them with counterfeit money illegally created out of thin air beyond what is needed to fund the ever-increasing deficit being created by the drunken sailors running the US government, and we then magically create categories of new mega-buyers in our financial reports to show everyone how our treasury paper is just as “beloved” as in the old days.  Why, even the totally bankrupt UK has magically created $180 billion for the express purpose of buying up those treasuries to keep the whole rip-off party going.

What a mess they have created.

Things have gotten so bad that even CNN is publishing articles that openly acknowledge the crisis.  In a recent article on CNN entitled “Is This Finally The Economic Collapse?”, Keith R. McCullough warned that the Federal Reserve openly buying large amounts of U.S. government debt is a very dangerous threshold to cross….

Now that the US can’t cut interest rates any lower, the only option left on the table is what the Fed just announced it would start doing — buying Treasury debt. And that could lead the country to the brink of collapse: According to economists Carmen Reinhart & Ken Rogoff, whose views we share, crossing the 90% debt/GDP threshold is the equivalent of crossing the proverbial Rubicon of economic growth. It’s a point from which it’s almost impossible to return.

And that is the crux of the problem – the U.S. government has a debt that is absolutely spiralling out of control.  This is a problem that has been building for decades and there simply is no quick fix for it. 

But the truth is that it was seen as far back as 1835.  In his article for CNN, Keith R. McCullough included a very appropriate quote by Alexis De Tocqueville, the author of Democracy in America….

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

Today, approximately 57% of the U.S. government budget is spent on direct payments to American citizens or is money that is spent on behalf of individual American citizens. 

For decades, the “Congress critters” have been bribing the American people (and each other) with massive payouts and have been getting away with it.

But now we are starting to pay the price.

The truth is that the U.S. government has become an expert on wasting money.  Most of the folks populating Congress are so incompetent that they should not even be hired to mop the floors of a Dairy Queen, and yet they control how trillions of our tax dollars are spent. 

The end result is that we have a financial mess that is absolutely unprecedented.

The U.S. financial system is doomed.  The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve will probably end up trying to save it with a massive flood of paper money, and in the end that will likely result in the collapse of the U.S. dollar and hyperinflation.

But hopefully all of that is still a while away yet.  For now, the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve are trying to play a very delicate balancing act and are trying to keep this giant house of cards from collapsing.

As incompetent as they are, let’s hope that they can keep things together for at least a while longer, because when things really fall apart we are all going to be feeling the pain.

11 Reasons Why The Federal Reserve Is Bad

Millions of Americans are waking up to the fact that the Federal Reserve is bad, but very few of them can coherently explain why this is true.  For decades, an unelected, privately-owned central bank has controlled America’s currency, run our economy and has driven the U.S. government to the brink of bankruptcy.  It operates in great secrecy, it has never been subjected to a comprehensive audit and yet the actions it takes have an impact on every single American.  It is an institution designed to drain wealth from the U.S. government (and ultimately from the American people) and transfer it to the ultra-wealthy.  Have you ever wondered why a sovereign nation such as the United States has to borrow United States dollars from anyone?  Have you ever wondered why a sovereign nation such as the United States does not even issue its own currency?  Have you ever wondered why we allow a group of unelected private bankers to run our economy?

Those are some very important questions.  Hopefully what you are about to read will open the eyes of many.  The truth is that our financial system is centrally-controlled and centrally-managed by a group of banking oligarchs who have constructed an ever-expanding debt spiral which has been efficiently designed to slowly transfer all wealth into their hands.

The following are 11 reasons why the Federal Reserve is not good for the United States….

1 – The Federal Reserve was created as a way to enslave the U.S. government with debt.  The truth is that the U.S. government only goes into debt if it chooses to.  Theoretically, one day that U.S. government could simply decide to print as many U.S. dollars as it wants and pay off all government debts.  But under the current system that is not allowed.  You see, today the U.S. government does not issue any money.  The Federal Reserve issues all money.  That is why they are called “Federal Reserve notes”.

Under the current regime, whenever the U.S. government wants more currency to be created it has to go into more debt.

In a previous article entitled “It Is Now Mathematically Impossible To Pay Off The U.S. National Debt” I explained how this insidious system works….

If you will pull a dollar bill out and take a look at it, you will notice that it says “Federal Reserve Note” at the top.

It belongs to the Federal Reserve.

The U.S. government cannot simply go out and create new money whenever it wants under our current system.

Instead, it must get it from the Federal Reserve.

So, when the U.S. government needs to borrow more money (which happens a lot these days) it goes over to the Federal Reserve and asks them for some more green pieces of paper called Federal Reserve Notes.   

The Federal Reserve swaps these green pieces of paper for pink pieces of paper called U.S. Treasury bonds. The Federal Reserve either sells these U.S. Treasury bonds or they keep the bonds for themselves (which happens a lot these days).

So that is how the U.S. government gets more green pieces of paper called “U.S. dollars” to put into circulation. But by doing so, they get themselves into even more debt which they will owe even more interest on.

So every time the U.S. government does this, the national debt gets even bigger and the interest on that debt gets even bigger.

Now, apologists for the Federal Reserve system are quick to point out that the Federal Reserve does not make much of a profit.   Once a “statutory dividend” of 6% is paid to member banks and a capital account surplus is “maintained”, the rest of the profits of the Federal Reserve go back to the U.S. Treasury.

Problem solved, right?

Wrong.

The point is not how much of a profit the Federal Reserve makes or does not make.

The point is that the Federal Reserve is a tool for creating U.S. government debt which slowly drains our national wealth and which ends up greatly enriching the global elite.

As of July 1st, the U.S. government had spent $355 billion so far in 2010 on interest payments to the holders of the national debt.

Have you ever wondered who gets all that money?

The truth is that the wealthiest individuals around the globe have been getting very rich for a very long time off of government debt.

2 – The Federal Reserve creates money out of thin air.  In a previous article, I noted how this fact comes out in congressional hearings and yet the American people just don’t seem to get too upset about it….

During a recent Joint Economic Committee hearing on Capital Hill, U.S. Representative Ron Paul directly confronted Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke about this 1.3 trillion dollars.  As Ron Paul described how this 1.3 trillion was just created out of thin air, all Bernanke could do was nod his head.  Why?  Because it was the truth.

3– The huge predator megabanks that now dominate the U.S. banking system use the Federal Reserve as a tool to make money.  One of the ways they do this is called the U.S. Treasury carry trade.  What happens is that the Federal Reserve lends huge amounts of money to the megabanks for next to nothing, and then these megabanks use all that cash to buy U.S. government debt.  This little “trick” helped enable four of the biggest U.S. banks (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup) to have a “perfect quarter” with zero days of trading losses during the first quarter of 2010.  Wouldn’t you like to have a perfect batting average?

4 – The Federal Reserve devalues our currency.  Since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, the U.S. dollar has lost 96 percent of its purchasing power.  The truth is that just a two percent inflation rate will wipe out half of your purchasing power within a single generation.  In the chart below, you can clearly see that the beginning of the rapid rise of inflation in the United States coincided with the creation of the Federal Reserve….

5 – The Federal Reserve manipulates the U.S. economy by setting national interest rates.  By keeping rates high or low, the Federal Reserve has the power to create economic growth or to destroy it.  They have the power to inflate massive bubbles and to pop them.  Most Americans give way too much credit and blame to presidents like Bush or Obama for how the economy is doing.  The truth is that they really don’t have that much control over the economy compared to the Federal Reserve.

6 – The Federal Reserve also controls the  national money supply.  They can pump trillions into the economy or pull trillions out without being accountable to anyone.  This can have disastrous consequences.  For example, after the U.S. stock market crash of 1929, the Federal Reserve continued to contract the money supply.  Many analysts believe that this was one of the key things that precipitated the Great Depression.

7– The Federal Reserve is not part of the U.S. government.  The truth is that the Federal Reserve is about as “federal” as Federal Express is.  In defending itself against a Bloomberg request for information under the Freedom of Information Act, the Federal Reserve objected by declaring that it was “not an agency” of the U.S. government and therefore it was not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.  It is kind of funny how Fed officials are always talking about how important their “independence” is, but whenever anyone starts criticizing them for being private they start stressing their ties with the government.

8 – The Federal Reserve has become far, far too powerful.  The reality is that those running the Federal Reserve are not elected and yet have an enormous amount of control.  In fact, Ron Paul recently told MSNBC that he believes that the Federal Reserve is more powerful than Congress…..

“The regulations should be on the Federal Reserve. We should have transparency of the Federal Reserve. They can create trillions of dollars to bail out their friends, and we don’t even have any transparency of this. They’re more powerful than the Congress.”

9– The Federal Reserve is dominated by Wall Street and the New York banks.  The New York representative is the only permanent member of the Federal Open Market Committee, while other regional banks rotate in 2 and 3 year intervals.  The former head of the New York Fed, Timothy Geithner, is now U.S. Treasury Secretary.  The truth is that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has always been the most important of the regional Fed banks by far, and in turn the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has always been dominated by Wall Street and the major New York banks.

10– Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke wants to completely eliminate minimum reserve requirements for banks.  Fractional reserve banking has always been a way that the bankers have conned the public, but now Bernanke wants to get rid of the pretense of “reserves” altogether.

It is almost too bizarre to believe, but it is right there in black and white on the Federal Reserve’s own website….

The Federal Reserve believes it is possible that, ultimately, its operating framework will allow the elimination of minimum reserve requirements, which impose costs and distortions on the banking system.

11 – The Federal Reserve is not accountable to anyone.  The Federal Reserve has never undergone a true comprehensive audit since it was created back in 1913.  Ron Paul’s proposal to audit the Federal Reserve, which had previously been co-sponsored by 320 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, ultimately failed by a vote of 229-198.

But shouldn’t the American people be able to see what is going on inside the Federal Reserve?

Shouldn’t we have some way to keep them accountable?

After all, they have an incredible amount of power over us, shouldn’t we have at least a little bit of power over them?

Unfortunately, the truth is that they desperately do not want light to be shined on the elaborate “shell game” that they are running.

Have you ever wondered if it was just a coincidence that the personal income tax was implemented just about the same time that the Federal Reserve was created?

Why does the U.S. government have to tax us?

Why can’t the U.S. government just print up all the money that it needs?

Well, the way that our Congress spends money that would probably create horrific hyperinflation, but that is the subject for another article.

The point is that the U.S. government should not have to get U.S. dollars from someone else.

If you take a few minutes to stop and think about it, an America where there is no Federal Reserve, no personal income tax and no IRS is not that hard to imagine.

If the U.S. government functioned just fine without all of them at one time, then why couldn’t the U.S. government function just fine without all of them now?

The system we have now clearly is not working.  The Federal Reserve was supposed to guarantee that our financial system would be perfectly stable, but in reality our financial system has become much more unstable.

It is time for different thinking.  It is time for the U.S. government to take back control of our currency and of our economy.  It is time to start electing some people with common sense to represent us in Washington.

So what do you think of the Federal Reserve?  Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion….

Fed Up

Do you ever get to the point where you are just fed up with the way that things are headed?  There are times when it seems as if we are all stuck in some kind of horrific nightmare that we can’t wake up from.  Day after day we get the privilege of watching our esteemed leaders down in Washington D.C. wreck the U.S. economy, push us towards socialism and globalism, and slowly erode our constitutional freedoms.  Day after day we get the privilege of watching corruption and greed run wild down on Wall Street.  Day after day those of us who are awake to what is going on find ourselves increasingly frustrated with the vast majority of Americans who are either too dazed, too drugged or too asleep to even care that the great nation that their forefathers built is in the process of crumbling all around them.  Not that there aren’t some promising signs out there.  Certainly Rand Paul’s recent victory in Kentucky shows that the American people are not automatically going to vote for the candidates backed by the establishment anymore.  But it seems like every piece of good news these days is accompanied by a dozen news stories that are so bad that they make you want to scream.  It is incredibly frustrating that tens of millions of Americans who bust their backs working incredibly long hours, who try to do what is right, and who truly do love their country are going to pay the price for the errors of a bunch of idiots down in Washington D.C. and New York.  The America that so many of us grew up in love with (the once great Republic with the greatest free enterprise system in the world) is being strangled out of existence by a horde of globalists, socialists and elitists.  Well, there are millions of us who are fed up.  I am fed up.  So today you are going to get an “editorial”.  Actually what you are going to get is an old-fashioned rant.  But the truth is that we live during times when ranting is appropriate.  Feel free to express your agreement or disagreement with the various things I am going to rant about below.  Hopefully if enough people start talking about these things, the American people will wake up and start taking their country back.

So exactly what am I fed up about?   

I’m fed up with politicians in Washington D.C. who prance around and talk about what a good job they are doing while they pile up the biggest debt in the history of the world.  We are stealing trillions of dollars from future generations, and if they get the chance they will curse us for the horrific debt that we have left them. 

I’m fed up with an unelected, privately-owned central bank issuing and controlling the currency of the United States.  Nobody but the U.S. government should be issuing U.S. dollars.  The reality is that the Federal Reserve is about as “federal” as Federal Express is, and the international bankers have used it for decades to transfer the wealth of the nation into their own pockets.

I’m fed up with being told that the money I have worked so hard to earn needs to be “redistributed” to people who wouldn’t know a hard day of work if it came up and bit them on the rear.

I’m fed up with Tea Party activists who believe in the Constitution and who desperately want to see a return to the ideals that the American republic was founded upon being labeled as “extremists” by the media while those who are pushing a socialism and globalism on America are referred to as “centrist” and “mainstream”.

I’m fed up with anyone who suggests that it is a good idea for the government to get to look at an image of our naked bodies before we are allowed to get on an airplane.

I’m fed up with hearing that there are banks that are “too big to fail” and that it is necessary for tax money taken from me to be used to bail them out.

I’m fed up with a financial system that is so rigged that four of the biggest U.S. banks (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup) can have a “perfect quarter” with zero days of trading losses during the first quarter of 2010.

I’m fed up with a financial system where the Dow can plunge nearly 1000 points in a single hour and nobody can seem to be able to figure out what happened.

I’m fed up with being told that I need to reduce my “carbon footprint” when carbon dioxide does not cause global warming and over 95% of total carbon dioxide emissions would occur even if humans were not present on Earth.

I’m fed up with people telling me that we should be glad to pay all the new taxes in the “health care reform” law because socialized medicine is such a good idea.   

I’m fed up with the open manipulation of the gold and silver markets right under the noses of the federal government.

I’m fed up with politicians that spend money in order to get votes without any concern for the financial future of this nation whatsoever.

I’m fed up with a government that can protect the South Korean border so well that not a single person gets through illegally for decades, and yet has done such a bad job of protecting our own border that Phoenix, Arizona has become the car theft capital of the world.

I’m fed up with a government that is so embarrassed by the recent anti-illegal immigration law passed in Arizona that they apologize to the communist Chinese for it.

I’m fed up with yuppies who went out and bought McMansions that they could not possibly afford whining and crying now that they are losing their houses.

I’m fed up with politicians shipping our manufacturing base to the third world and then pretending that it is our fault when we can’t get jobs.

I’m fed up with people telling me how wonderful “free trade” and “the global economy” are while our once great manufacturing cities such as Detroit turn into rusted-out war zones.

I’m fed up with international organizations such as the IMF and the WHO telling us that they want the American people to start paying global taxes.

I’m fed up with politicians being treated like celebrities and rock stars when they are actually leading American right into the toilet.

I’m fed up with a president and a Congress that are rapidly dismantling the strategic nuclear arsenal that has helped keep America safe for decades.

I’m fed up with politicians who run over to China and beg them to keep buying even more of our debt.

I’m fed up with the United Nations and members of the U.S. government claiming that there are far too many people in the world and that we need to promote population control measures all over the globe.

I’m fed up with a Supreme Court that has absolutely no respect at all for the personal property rights of ordinary Americans.

I’m fed up with a government that insists that freakishly-altered genetically modified crops are good for us, and that allows companies like Monsanto to ruthlessly push these “Frankenfoods” on to dinner tables all across the United States.

I’m fed up with a public that is far more interested in the death of Michael Jackson and in what is going on with Jon & Kate than in the absolutely crucial economic and political issues that directly affect them and their families. 

I’m fed up with a government that is so incompetent when it comes to foreign policy that Russia and China are literally running circles around them.

I’m fed up with a government that allows nearly a million innocent babies to be killed year in and year out.

I’m fed up with watching Wall Street bankers rake in record-setting bonuses while nearly 40 million Americans are on food stamps.

I’m fed up with a national debt that is impossible to pay off, a dollar that has lost over 95 percent of its value since the Federal Reserve was created and a financial system that is designed to fail.

If you don’t understand why the U.S. economic system is doomed, you should check out the video posted below.  The inevitable collapse of the U.S. financial system is beautifully illustrated in this brand new documentary entitled “Meltup”.  It is one of the best videos on the economic crisis that America is facing that has ever been posted on YouTube.  This video is likely to make you very mad, but after watching it you will have a much greater understanding of the economic nightmare that the United States is now facing….

So are you fed up too? Please feel free to leave a comment telling us what you are upset about….

Paupers In The Land Our Forefathers Conquered

A long time ago, in an America now far, far away, the majority of the American people owned the land that they live on.  The term “my land” actually meant something back then.  But today that has fundamentally changed.  Now the majority of the American people owe on the land that they live on.  In fact, most of them owe big money to the giant corporate banking interests that control the mortgage industry.  So how did the American people come to be debtors and paupers in the land that our forefathers conquered?  Today when someone says that they “bought a house” what they really mean is that they have signed up for 30 years (or more) of bloated mortgage payments which they care barely afford.  As you will see below, the percentage of residential mortgage debt to total home equity (housing net worth) in the United States continues to rise at a staggering pace.  In fact, thanks to the housing crash, for the first time in American history residential mortgage debt far surpasses the total home equity owned by all Americans.  So what does that mean?  It means that the big corporate banks have more of an interest in America’s homes than we do now.

So how are we getting our land taken from us?

Well, you can thank rampant inflation and the housing bubble.

Back in 1980, the United States was pushing up towards a total of $1 billion in total residential mortgage debt.  It took us over 200 years to get to that point as a nation.

By 1990, the United States approximately doubled that amount and was sitting at about $2 trillion  in total residential mortgage debt.

By the year 2000, the United States had just about $5 trillion in total residential mortgage debt.

By 2008, the United States had over $10 trillion in total residential mortgage debt.

Do you notice a trend?

In just the past 30 years the amount of residential mortgage debt in the United States has increased tenfold.

Meanwhile, thanks to the housing crash, home equity has taken a nosedive.  As you can see from the chart below, total residential mortgage debt in the U.S. now far exceeds total home equity….

So what does this mean?  It means that the banks have more of a financial interest in America’s homes than we do.  It means that we are quickly becoming paupers and debt slaves.

As you can see from the chart below, back in 1945 total home equity as a percentage of home value was extremely high (80%).  Home equity exceeded total residential mortgage debt by about a 4 to 1 margin.  But today total residential mortgage debt exceeds home equity and the situation is rapidly becoming worse….

We were all told to buy into the system and we could live the American Dream.  We were told to get a “good job” with one of the big global corporations and we were told to get a mortgage so that we could build up equity.  Well, that has turned out great for most of us, hasn’t it?

The reality is that the system so many of us trusted is dying.  We are now at the point where the system cannot provide jobs for millions of us anymore.  If unemployment continues to soar as it has, millions more of us will find ourselves destitute and homeless on the continent our forefathers conquered….

So how did all of this happen?

Back in 1913, the U.S. Congress gave control over U.S. currency to the Federal Reserve.  Since that time, the value of the U.S. dollar has slowly been eroded.  $1.00 in 1914 (the year after the Federal Reserve was established) had about the same buying power as $21.59 in 2010.  That means that the U.S. dollar has lost over 95 percent of its purchasing power since then.

So the accumulated wealth that our parents and grandparents hand down to us is being constantly devalued.  The only way to keep up with rising prices on land and on everything else is to go out into the system to get more of the “currency” that is controlled and manipulated by the Federal Reserve and the big corporate banks.  But what most of us don’t realize is that the game is rigged to slowly transfer the wealth of the nation over to them.

The house always wins in the end.

Thanks to the greed and stupidity of the American people, we have accumulated the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world.  It was a fun party while we were piling up all the debt, but now the bankers have us where they want us.

If only we had listened to those among our founding fathers who warned us about this trap.

For example, the words of Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Taylor dated May 28th, 1816 ring more true today than they ever have….

And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

The truth is that the American people are being swindled and most of them don’t even realize it.  The wealth of America is slowly being transferred to the big banks.  All of the interest that we pay month after month after month makes them rich.

The financial system of the United States is broken.  But until the U.S. economy totally collapses most Americans will not realize it.  By then it will be far too late.

FINCA BAYANO

Ponzi Scheme: The Federal Reserve Bought Approximately 80 Percent Of U.S. Treasury Securities Issued In 2009

The Federal Reserve Bought Approximately 80 Percent Of U.S. Treasury Securities Issued In 2009No, the headline is not a misprint.  According to CNBC, the Federal Reserve bought approximately 80 percent of the U.S. Treasury securities issued in 2009.  In other words, the Federal Reserve has been gobbling up the massive tsunami of U.S. government debt that has been created over the past year.  This is absolutely unprecedented, and it is yet another clear indication that the U.S. financial system is on the verge of a major economic collapse.

You see, the Federal Reserve is not part of the federal government.  In fact, the Federal Reserve is about as “federal” as Federal Express is.

The Federal Reserve is a private bank owned and operated for profit by a very powerful group of elite international bankers.

It is this private central bank that controls the money supply and the issuance of currency in the United States.

When the U.S. government needs to borrow more money (which happens a lot) they go over to the Federal Reserve and they ask them for some more green pieces of paper called Federal Reserve Notes.

The Federal Reserve swaps these green pieces of paper for pink pieces of paper called U.S. Treasury bonds.

Now normally the Federal Reserve takes these U.S. Treasury bonds and they sell them all to other buyers.

But in 2009 there were not nearly enough buyers.

So in 2009 the Federal Reserve sold itself about 80 percent of this debt.

This is even being admitted on CNBC.  The video below is from January 8th, and at the 1:45 mark CNBC anchor Erin Burnett drops this bombshell along with a comment about how it is a Ponzi scheme….

So why is it a Ponzi scheme?

Well, basically the Federal Reserve is creating money out of nothing, loaning it to the U.S. government and then collecting interest on the loan.

That is nice work if you can get it.

But also, this intervention by the Federal Reserve is keeping interest rates on U.S. Treasury bonds artificially low.

In a true “free market” situation, the interest rates on U.S. treasuries would rise to reflect the rapidly declining economic situation in this nation.

Due to the massive explosion in the size of the U.S. government debt and due to the very weak U.S. economy, interest rates on U.S. treasuries should have shot through the roof by now.  Rational investors would normally require an increased return for the increased risk that U.S. treasuries now represent.

But that is not happening.

Instead when there are no buyers for U.S. treasuries at current interest rates, the Federal Reserve just steps in and buys up all the excess bonds that need to be purchased.

But in a normal free market situation, interest rates would rise on U.S. treasuries until they would be attractive enough for investors to buy them all.

However, that would create some huge problems.

If the U.S. government was not able to borrow all of the money it wanted to at artificially low interest rates, the results would be absolutely disastrous.

Much higher interest rates on U.S. government debt would cause the U.S. federal budget deficit to absolutely explode.  Interest rates on everything else throughout the economy would also skyrocket.  As mortgage rates climbed dramatically, the housing market would completely collapse.  The U.S. economy would be totally in flames.

But for now (and this situation cannot last forever) the Federal Reserve is keeping interest rates artificially low by lending the U.S. government as much money as it wants at extremely low interest rates.  Of course the Federal Reserve is making an insane amount of money out of the arrangement, so it is working out quite nicely for them as well.

But by essentially “printing” a flood of cheap money for the U.S. government to borrow, the Federal Reserve is ultimately going to end up destroying the value of the U.S. dollar.

Every fiat currency throughout history has always ended up losing its value, and that is exactly what is going to happen this time too.  The only way to protect the buying power of your money is to put it into something that will hold value (like gold or silver).  Your dollars are never going to be worth more than they are today.

The actions taken by the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have guaranteed the demise of the U.S. dollar.  At this point it is unavoidable.  It is only a matter of how soon it will happen and how bad it will be as things play out.

You better get ready.

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